We already know that the film adaptation of Warren Ellis' Red is going to be completely different from the comic book. So what can we expect from this action comedy? And how closely is it related to the original? Spoilers...

When the first trailer for Red came out, we noted that the film version of Red is a very different animal from Ellis and Cully Hammer's original comic. And the panel, if anything, hit that home, featuring a second trailer starring Bruce Willis as ex-CIA agent Frank Moses, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich as his misfit team of former operatives, and Mary-Louise Parker as the girlfriend who gets caught up in his spy life.

The three-issue miniseries written by Ellis and drawn by Cully Hamner was a lean, mean,…
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And here's the new trailer they showed:

Ellis reiterated his desire to see a Red movie that is worlds away from the original book:

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My role was to stay out of the way. I told the writers, "I'm here if you need me, but I want to see what you do with it."

After all, Ellis said later, he doesn't write his books with a film adaptation in mind:

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I don't think much about the movie. That way leads madness or Mark Millar.

Hammer agreed:

We did kind of an economical 66 page graphic novel and it's been expanded for audiences. I think the core of the comic is there.

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura suggested that it's less an adaptation of the book than a translation of the main character Frank Moses (Paul Moses in the book) in a new setting:

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Frank is a really really wonderful character. We took that character and brought him into a larger venue.... There's a great sense of fun, but there's a gravity to it. There's great action and great comedy. You're going to have fun.

So if we can't look to the book for guidance, what can we expect from Red? In addition to the action and the comedy, Bruce Willis says there's another genre at the movie's heart:

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I keep hearing people talk about this film as if it's an action film, but I think it's a romantic comedy.